Category Archives: South America

Taking a break from writing about health care, workers’ comp, and medical travel, I want to talk about something I saw, or rather heard yesterday afternoon on MSNBC.

It was an audio (furnished by ProPublica) of children crying at a detention center (more like Concentration Camp) that broke my heart. I was in tears, and very seldom do so. But those cries went right to me.

If they did to you, then you are a good human being. If not, then you have no soul. And please, don’t quote me that that’s the law, or it is in the Bible, or they are illegal and have no rights.

EVERY HUMAN BEING HAS RIGHTS.

And as for whether or not they are “illegal”, I guess you forgot that when your ancestors arrived on the Mayflower or whatever ship they sailed on, the landlords here for thousands of years knew you were “illegal” too.

The ancestors of all of these people now streaming to our border came to this hemisphere some 20,000 years ago, so by those standards, you, me, and all the rest of us are undocumented aliens. But no one tells us to leave. Or yanks our kids from our arms.

That we do this and many other things to minorities is a symptom of our greed, ignorance, and stupidity that never seems to die out. Take for example, our Confederate-era Attorney General, Jeff “Foghorn Leghorn” Sessions. That refugee from the set of “Gone With the Wind” is not only a religious zealot, but a full-out bigot and racist from a region of the nation that still has not given up its racism and hatred of non-whites, and non-Christians. In this case, non-Protestants from Catholic Latin America.

Too many of our fellow Americans have been poisoned by talk radio, Fox News, and local politicians to see that we are all immigrants and that at times in the long history of the human species, we were migrants too. Our prehistoric ancestors migrated, as did many more recent peoples. But none ever subjected to such cruelty, except during the 1930’s and 1940’s.

We were all taught in school to believe in the ideals of America as a shining city on a hill (incidentally, an idea the Puritans created), and was more about a religious view than a secular one. We were all taught about why we fought a revolution, why we have a Declaration of Independence, and why we have a Constitution that secures our rights and liberties.

And now we are throwing all that away because of a clique of neo-fascist, racist bullies and bigots, headed by a pathological liar and con man, who has conned a large segment of the American people (by which I mean White people) that he can make America great again, all the while cozying up to dictators and dissing our friends.

Folks, this is how Hitler and the Nazis began. And it ended with 6 million dead (my maternal great-uncle, aunt and their six children among them), so don’t tell me it is legal or biblical. You know where you can put that.

And those of you who say they have stolen our jobs or they are criminals and rapists, I have news for you…next time you are in a restaurant, or a family member is in a hospital, bus your own table, and clean up your family member’s dirty linen. Because if Herr Miller (Stephen) gets his way, there won’t be any bus boys, nurses’ aides, home health aides, janitors, and other occupations Americans won’t be filling begging for workers. Oh, and you can come to Florida and pick your own fruits and vegetables, because there won’t be anyone to do it for you.

To date, it has been viewed in over 100+ countries and had over 33,600 views, as shown in the image here:

The areas in grey represent those countries that have not viewed my blog, and as you can see they are mostly in Africa and part of the Mideast, especially Iran (but you would expect that).

Of course, there are exceptions, such as Greenland and those islands to the east of Greenland. Oh, and there is one other island that has not had any views: Cuba. And one nation that has been in the news of late: North Korea.

Still, I am very happy and grateful for all the views, wherever they come from, but some have surprised even me. Take for instance, the Palestinian territories, China, Vietnam, and those in the northeast part of Africa. Even Saudi Arabia (do they know I am Jewish?)

Thank you all for the past five and a half years, and once again, I’d like to invite you to reach out to me whenever you want to discuss an article, or have something to add. I want to get to know my readers better.

I am writing you all to address some issues I am having with the industry on the occasion of my having past my five year anniversary writing this blog, and nearing another milestone, that of publishing 400 articles. At present, I am at 396.

For the past few weeks, I have noticed on the social media site, LinkedIn that some of my connections in the industry have been attending conferences around the world, and more recently, I have replied that I wished I was there and posted a recent post with the message to advertise my willingness to collaborate, or attend such conferences.

With the exception of one person this evening, not one person has responded positively, nor in the past five years has anyone other than one person invited me to speak at a conference, and that was three years ago in Mexico. The other two conferences I attended were here in Florida; one in Miami Beach, the other in Hollywood, Florida. The first in 2014, the second in 2012, and was the reason why I started writing my blog three days after it ended.

My intention then, as now, was to transition into a new career path, so that I could be employed and enjoy the things other people enjoy, and see the world before I am unable to. But In the past five years, while I have connected with practically all the major players in the industry, defended the industry in numerous posts, and even been critical of the industry at times; no one, not here in the US, nor anyone in Latin America or the Caribbean has invited me to a conference or a fam tour, nor to any other part of the world that is not part of some current conflict.

Recently, an American filmmaker had the premier of her film on medical travel on American television, on what we call the “Public Broadcasting System”. or PBS. I missed most of it, but was able to see two names in the credits that I recognized. One person I met in Miami Beach in 2014, the other I am connected with on LinkedIn, but have never met. I tried to contact the filmmaker, but when she did not respond, I contacted my connection, who told me she was leery about responding because I had had an association with an organization we all know, but do not like that purports to represent the industry. He had to tell her that I am legitimate.

Folks, after five years of writing, and six, almost seven, of researching the industry, and being viewed on every major continent, you would think that many of you would know that I am honest, sincere, and definitely a legitimate advocate for medical travel.

Last week, I discovered that there was a conference in Dusseldorf, Germany, and today, I learned that one of my other connections, who I did meet in Reynosa in 2014. was invited to a conference in China. What does it take to be taken seriously and given the respect and courtesy of being invited to attend these functions after all this time?

I began my work in 2011. This coming March will be seven years since I wrote my White Paper. The paper is on my blog. My articles, even those covering Workers’ Comp and Health Care have not generated many views on a daily basis, save for a few here and there. I admit, they all cannot be prize winners, but at least I am persistent. Yet, I am not making headway with the industry, nor am I getting any compensation for writing,

I don’t want to sound like I am complaining, but I feel that after all this time, it is wrong for me to be ignored. I have committed long hours of my time and my life to this industry, even as my health over the summer was an issue. I am not out of the woods yet, but I am doing ok, and with the proper treatment, and eventual surgery, I should be healthy in the future, and can travel until such time, as long as I have more than two weeks notice.

In the beginning of my blog writing, I added a section where I asked readers to tell me where they are from and who they were. No one responded, so I stopped the practice. I still would like to hear from you, but after reading this letter, I hope you will do more than just dropping me a note.

Quotes

“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”

– Muhammad Ali

“If people are not laughing at your goals, your goals are too small..”

– Azim Premji

“Those who say your dreams are ridiculous have given up on theirs.”

– Unknown

Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.

– Thomas Carlyle

“As the work is done for the employer, and therefore ultimately for the public, it is a bitter injustice that it should be the wage-worker himself and his wife and children who bear the whole penalty.”

– President Theodore Roosevelt, 1907

To permit every lawless capitalist, every law-defying corporation, to take any action, no matter how iniquitous, in the effort to secure an improper profit and to build up privilege, would be ruinous to the Republic and would mark the abandonment of the effort to secure in the industrial world the spirit of democratic fair dealing.

– Theodore Roosevelt, 1908

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”

– John Kenneth Galbraith

“Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of their right to join the union of their choice.”

– Dwight D. Eisenhower

“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

– Thomas Jefferson

“Mischief springs from the power which the moneyed interest derives from a paper currency which they are able to control, from the multitude of corporations with exclusive privileges… which are employed altogether for their benefit.”

– Andrew Jackson

“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong it’s reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”

– Abraham Lincoln

“Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not.”

“Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer, unless under compulsion from society.”

– Karl Marx

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, NOT on fighting the old, but on BUILDING the NEW.”

– Socrates

“Every man takes the limits of his field of vision for the limits of the world”

– Arthur Schopenhauer

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

– Arthur Schopenhauer

“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

– Winston Churchill

“No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.”

– Robin Williams

“There can be no equality or opportunity if men and women and children be not shielded in their lives from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they cannot alter, control, or singly cope with.”

– Woodrow Wilson

“Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.”

– John Stuart Mill

“The masters of the government of the United States are the combined capitalists and manufacturers of the United States.”

– Woodrow Wilson

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.”

– Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health [care] is the most shocking and inhuman[e]…”